Clinical training

The Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary Fellowship provides you with exposure to a wide spectrum of procedures, from resident-level operations to advanced, complex operations designed for advanced trainees who are competent in complicated hepato-pancreatico-biliary (HPB) and upper gastrointestinal surgery.

In large part, the fellowship focuses on HPB, though it also involves gastric and some esophageal surgery, major oncologic-type abdominal procedures, and some colon and rectal surgery. While this is not primarily a laparoscopic fellowship, there is considerable laparoscopy involved in your clinical training.

Fellows are fully responsible for patient management on clinical rotations. Mayo Clinic complies with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education guidelines for duty hours.

Didactic training

From an educational standpoint, you participate in limited educational opportunities. There are several laboratory-based seminars throughout the year, such as a basic stapling seminar, basic laparoscopy seminar, advanced stapling seminar and advanced laparoscopy seminar. You participate as one of the faculty members in these courses.

We recommend that you give one educational seminar throughout the year based on your research interests.

Research training

We recommend that you focus on one specific aspect of research during the fellowship, whether clinical or laboratory. You are assigned to one of the staff surgeons (consultants) who is involved in your field of interest, and this person also serves as your primary mentor.

Research-related courses given by Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences are available to assist with development of clinical research skills.

Our goal is that you develop a special area of research emphasis during the fellowship. We also expect additional academic pursuits, such as writing book chapters, review articles, clinical papers and a basic research paper. To date, commitments to clinical and laboratory research have been nearly equal since 1994.

Administrative activities

We recommend that you participate in some of the administrative duties of an academic surgeon, such as being on an education committee with participation in selecting incoming residents. The General Surgery Program Education Committee meets a few times each year to evaluate the General Surgery Residency at Mayo Clinic.

You also participate as an active member of the Surgical Research Committee, which gets you involved in some of the problems and duties of a department in running its research opportunities.

Evaluation

To ensure you gain proficiency and develop the corresponding technical skills, your performance is monitored throughout the Hepato-Pancreatico-Biliary Fellowship. You are formally evaluated by your supervising faculty member after completing each clinical rotation and meet with the program director to review these evaluations.

In addition, you regularly evaluate the faculty and program to ensure your educational goals are being met.